Wondering where technical communication is headed, in 2010 and beyond? Sarah O’Keefe, Ellis Pratt, and Tony Self offer their insights.
According to these respected thought leaders, here are six emerging trends in technical communication:
- Trend 1: Documentation will become more of a [positive] emotional experience for the user.
- Trend 2: Technical communicators will start writing in a more persuasive (rhetorical) style, rather than their traditional neutral (explanatory|expository) style.
- Trend 3: XML is now a prerequisite for supporting wider business objectives, providing much more than cost-cutting localization or single source formatting benefits.
- Trend 4: The paradigm for how users refer to Customer Support versus User Documentation is changing.
- Trend 5: Autogenerated Documentation—turning task models into procedures—is on the horizon.
- Trend 6: As the proliferation of information continues to explode on the Web, technical communicators will find their jobs involving more and more content curation.
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